


saving each other

by Areiton



Series: the family we make [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Feels, Family Relationship - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, POV Harley Keener, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), loving superheroes is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Morgan sits in his lap. She’s getting too big for it now, doesn’t quite fit as easy as she used to, but she’s a stubborn little shit, and she sits in his lap and says, “Do you think I could do it?”“What, pillbug?” he asks. He’s watching the sky, waiting for Peter to come swinging through the trees that line the drive from the Compound.“What Daddy did. What Pete and Uncle Rhodey does--save people.”





	saving each other

Sometimes, he thinks about it. What his life would be like, if Tony Stark had broken into anyone else’s barn. 

He tries to imagine what it would be like, the past six years--eleven, if the rumors that they were gone for five is true--would have been like, without Tony’s eradicate phone calls, without the tools and education and  _ support. _

He can’t. 

He sat in his garage, dusty and untouched in his absence, for hours, after Happy called and told him when the funeral was. And he can’t imagine it. 

Tony Stark crashed into his life one Christmas, a life time ago. 

And everything changed. 

Everything changed. 

~*~ 

Morgan is brilliant and beautiful and sassy, and she smiles at him like he’s the best present in the world. 

She tells him stories, heavily edited and suitable for a child, and he chokes on his sobs, because he can hear Tony in her words. 

She calls him brother, and he shatters, because a child is taught things. They are  _ taught _ who their family is and she looks at him, at Peter, like they’re family, like she can’t quite believe they’re here, and like she always expected them to be here. 

He sees Tony in that too. 

~*~ 

Peter--Peter is beautiful and brilliant and sassy, in ways that Morgan isn’t, and captivating. He’s a flickering flame and Harley is a moth, drawn to him. 

“I wanted to hate you,” he confesses. It’s the night after the funeral and Morgan is asleep in Pepper’s bed, and Peter is sprawled across the entire couch, his long lean limbs akimbo, hair tousled and dark bruises under his eyes. 

“He loved you and I thought--”

“He never replaced you,” Peter says, wistfully. “He used to tell me about what you were building. About how smart you were and how proud of you. Mr--he loved you.” 

Harley gropes for his hand, and Peter squeezes it, tight, tight, and he thinks, that grip and Morgan’s smile is the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. 

~*~ 

“Are you going back to Tennessee?” Peter asks. Morgan is in her tent, and it’s a bad day, a day she demands Tony endlessly and neither of them can produce him, and Pepper looks one wrong word from shattering. 

Peter is staring at the water, his gaze shuttered, like this answer doesn’t matter. 

Harley watches him while the birds chirp and he finally looks back eyes bright and almost defiant and he smiles, soft. 

“My family is here,” he says. 

~*~ 

They don’t talk about Tennessee after that, or the family Harley left behind in Rose Hill Cemetary. 

They don’t talk about the suit Peter refuses to put on or the way Pepper’s hands tremble in the mornings. They don’t talk about the way Morgan asks for Tony, still, months later, or the way Rhodey drinks too much. 

They don’t talk about any of it. 

They cling to each other and they keep each other afloat, and Harley thinks--it’s not enough, but it’s all they’ve got, and he’ll take it until they can do better. 

~*~ 

The world isn’t ok. They hide in a cabin in the woods next to a lake, surrounded by miles of forest and land, a sanctum that Tony created for his family, a place where no one could touch. 

But the world isn’t ok. The Decimation and Restoration, they took and brought back  _ so much _ and even in the aftermath, in the unspeakable joy of having all of them back--there are holes. Giant gaping holes, where people should be. The world didn’t stop, when Thanos snapped, and half the universe shattered into dust--it kept on spinning itself closer to the edge, closer to chaos, and even now. 

The world isn’t ok. 

~*~ 

Rhodey puts on the suit and he goes to join what’s left of the Avengers, to put the world back together. They get reports about it. They want Peter, want Pepper--need Spider-man and Rescue. He can see it, in their eyes, the guilt that they aren’t going back to the fight.

“He’d be ashamed of me,” Peter says, and Harley pulls him into a hug. 

“Never,” he whispers. 

~*~ 

It changes. Because the world  _ isn’t _ ok. The men who come are looking for Morgan, because dying to save the universe isn’t enough for them--Tony still has more to give, a beautiful little girl who lights up their dark world. 

They don’t find her--just Harley, in his greasy tanktop and threadbare jeans, and fear trembling in his bones. Morgan is tucked away, hidden away, just like they taught her. 

She’s a Stark and the world is  _ broken _ and has always demanded too much of Starks. 

He smiles, cocky and terrified and pain explodes through him when they start to hit him. 

~*~ 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. 

“You’re safe.” 

Peter’s in blue and red and his voice is steady and Harley can’t move without it  _ hurting _ but he forces it out, anyway. “Morgan?” 

“Shh,” he shushes. “She’s fine. Perfect. You’re the one we’re worried about.”

Peter shifts him and he bites back his scream, and gives into the black. 

~*~ 

“Is this what being a superhero is like?” he croaks. Peter stares at him, eyes haunted and hands clenched in his lap. He can see, stil, the edges of Peter’s suit peeking under the collar of his shirt. 

“No,” he whispers. “It’s what loving one is like.” 

Harley stifles his whine but reaches out and takes Peter’s hand. Holds it in his, their fingers twisted together, and Peter looks up at him, finally, eyes wide and startled. He smiles. “Worth it.” 

~*~ 

They move. Not into the New Avengers compound. But on the grounds. Where FRIDAY can monitor security and Pepper can run SI and Morgan is  _ safe. _ “Are you putting it back on?” Harley asks, nodding at the suit hanging in Peter’s closet and Peter looks at him. It’s strange, seeing it there with Harley’s leather jacket and worn coveralls. 

But not bad. 

“Would you mind?” 

Harley smiles at him, slow and lazy. “You’re supposed to be his smart kid, Parker.” 

~*~ 

“How’d you do it?” he asks, one night. Peter is out, one of the endless streams of missions to save a world that is not ok, a world that will always need it’s heroes. He’s not pacing, but he’s chewed his nails down, and only stopped drinking because he couldn’t stomach dinner. 

Morgan curls in his lap, listening to FRIDAY read to her, and Pepper--Pepper watches him, something like sympathy in her eyes. 

“I didn’t do it well. Not for a long time. But--it’s part of them. I  _ love _ Tony--and I realized, I couldn’t love part of him. It was everything.” 

~*~ 

Morgan sits in his lap. She’s getting too big for it now, doesn’t quite fit as easy as she used to, but she’s a stubborn little shit, and she sits in his lap and says, “Do you think I could do it?” 

“What, pillbug?” he asks. He’s watching the sky, waiting for Peter to come swinging through the trees that line the drive from the Compound. 

“What Daddy did. What Pete and Uncle Rhodey does--save people.” 

He closes his eyes and squeezes her tight. “You already do, sweetheart. You save us, every day.” 

~*~ 

Peter comes home, and he’s sweaty and flush, the way he always is, after a mission, and Harley knows he’ll be melancholy later--but he pulls him close, whispers  _ Pete _ into his hair and takes the kiss, desperate and reaffirming, that he needs. And he feels  _ guilty _ for how grateful he is, that Peter is here, with him. 

_ I still need him, Tony. We still need him.  _

_ ~*~  _

The world isn’t ok. 

And  _ they _ aren’t ok. But they save each other. A little at a time, a little every day, they save each other. 


End file.
